SHIELD in The Temple
by krbrooks
Summary: While Hunter shows an interest in Skye, the team investigates an 0-8-4 found in a temple. The problem? The temple is in the sky. (Takes place after "A Hen in The Wolf Herd". Small Skye Hunter.)
1. CrazyTown

My fists stung from the punching bag. I pounded harder. _Jeb, cross, jeb cross, right hook, left hook. _My head was rushing with thoughts, my hands moving in the same pattern over and over again.

"Lucy!" Skye called.

_Keep punching, keep punching, _I thought.

"Lucy, don't ignore me," Skye sighed. "Lucy," She said again, grabbing my wrists and pulling me away. I looked down at my hands. My knuckles were split, my palms were smeared with blood and sweat, and the back of my hands were covered with scars.

Skye placed two hands on both of my cheeks, brushing my bangs out of my face.

"How long have you been down here?" She asked softly.

My eyes shifted to hers. "Since one in the morning," I said softly, a tear slipping down my cheek.

"Why?" She asked me.

I grabbed her wrist, holding it tightly.

"Where is he?" I asked, more tears spilling over my cheeks. "Why won't he let us find him? Why is he so afraid?"

My dad.

"_And you're not?" _Skye whispered. "He killed innocent people, he could be an alien."

"What about _us?_" I asked.

Skye wrapped her arms around me, holding me tightly. I sobbed into her shoulder, and no matter how annoying I must have gotten, she stayed with me, holding me up.

"Come on," Skye said after a while, pulling away. "Let's get you cleaned up."

After a shower, I went to get some hot chocolate from the kitchen at about one o'clock in the afternoon. Skye let me watch a couple movies before I took a shower, then she wrapped my hands in bandages. I dressed in my sweatpants and my lonely shirt: A fuzzy kitty with a caption that said, "Looking for love." (I'm obsessed with cats and animals. But mostly cats.)

As I walked towards the counter, I saw Skye and Hunter sitting next to each other at the table.

"Hey, Lucy," Skye smiled. "Feeling better?"

"A little bit," I raised my eyebrows as I took hot chocolate powder from the pantry.

"Let me see your hands," She said.

I walked over, and she slowly unwrapped the bandages covering my scars. They had stopped dripping, but blood still sat on top of the marks.

"Doing okay," She said. "Just give them time to heal, don't keep punching for ten hours."

"Ten hours?" Hunter raised his eyebrows. "Really? Seriously, you need calm down a bit."

"Shut up," I rolled my eyes as Skye wrapped my hands up again.

I fiddled with the coffee maker for a while before finally finishing with my hot chocolate. I took it up to my room, where I just lay in bed, watching movies. I was on the fourth movie, slowly fading into sleep at about eleven o'clock. Until I heard voices in my ear.

I sat upright in my bed. On the TV, I saw into the kitchen, where Hunter and Skye were still sitting there talking. When they talked, it felt like they were right behind me, talking into my ear. I walked over to look closely.

"I've told you before, Coulson's different," Skye said. "Everything is. Even Lucy. She was never this sensitive. Now it seems like she'll cry at anything."

"She doesn't seem to upset to me," Hunter said. "Just a little down."

"My sister is tougher than that," Skye said, checking her phone. "She never takes things seriously. When we first found out HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD, the first thing she said was, 'Oooh, we're having a dramatic moment, aren't we? OH, if this were a TV show, we should totally have faded to black!' Trust me, she never likes to be serious."

"Sounds irritating."

"She did that to unstress herself out," Skye said, her voice wavering. "Not gonna cry, not gonna cry…" She mumbled to herself, smiling gently at Hunter. A tear slipped down her cheek.

"It's okay," Hunter said, sitting down in the chair next to her and putting his arm around her. "Let it out."

She leaned into him, already sobbing. "I miss her so much," She gasped through tears.

I felt my heart snap inside my chest. I slowly sat on my bed, and the tears came to me too. I had thought for the last few months that Skye had changed, but in reality, it was _me. _

The door flew open, and I sat up straight, my face tear-streaked.

_It was Ward. _

A pistol was pointed at me in his hand.

"Miss me?" He asked. "Skye did."

"NO, she doesn't!" I yelled, standing up and backing towards the wall. "She hates you, know that!"

"Oh no, Lucy," He smirked. "She loved me."

"Past-tense," I said, drowning in tears. "Why?"

"Because I found her with another man," Ward said. "Then I put a bullet in _both _their heads."

"You have serious anger issues," I gasped for air through tears.

The gun clattered to the ground, and he sped towards me.

"WARD!" I screamed, my eyes flashing open. I clutched my blankets to my chest, and tears ran down my face.

_I'm in bed, _I thought. _I'm okay. _

"It's okay," I whispered to myself. "It's fine, I'm okay." I bit my lip. I didn't care about that.

"_Skye's okay,_" I reassured myself. "She's alright."

"Exhausted, aren't you, love?" Hunter's voice hummed in my ear. _The comms._

Ward wasn't real. Their conversation was.

"_I've changed,_" I whispered to myself. I turned on my lamp and switched the TV off, grabbing my phone off the desk.

"You should get some sleep," Hunter said to Skye.

Skye moaned. "Carry me," she said sleepily. I could feel her smile. Hunter sighed, then said, "Hop on."

Five minutes later, Hunter opened the door with a sleepy Skye in his back. "Am I intruding?" He whispered.

"I've got the lamp on, and a phone in my hand," I said, pretending to think about it. "So yeah, you're definitely intruding." I finished sarcastically.

"Alright, I'll just take her then," Hunter smirked.

"Hey!" I said, throwing a mini pillow and hitting him in the head. "Bad Hunter!" He stopped and turned around. "Come here," I said, as if he were a dog.

Hunter leaned back and dropped Skye into bed.

"Good boy," I smiled.

Skye felt around with her eyes tight shut for the blankets, pulling them up to her chin.

"Why does she make people carry her to bed like a little kid?" He asked.

"I dunno," I replied. "I remember she made me carry her to bed for an entire week in a row."

Skye sat up with her eyes closed, turned towards me. She threw a mini pillow right past my bed.

"Epic fail," I mumbled.

"I carried _you_ to bed," Skye said, her voice tired. She looked towards Hunter. (With her eyes closed) "I carried her to bed for an entire week." She collapsed back down on the mattress.

We waited ten seconds.

"Is she asleep?" Hunter whispered.

"Dude, she was asleep when she threw the pillow," I said.

"Alright, you should probably get some sleep," he said.

"Right." I plugged my phone in, then clicked off the light.

I watched Hunter lean over, then gently kiss Skye's cheek.

My heart stopped, and my jaw hit the floor.

Hunter stood up, then put a finger to his lips.

I did too. "What the heck?!" I whispered with my finger still stuck in front of my mouth.

And he disappeared into the hallway.

_Oh, no, _I thought. _He likes her. What about Bobbi? _

_What the heck?! _

I looked around. It was dark.

_I wanna watch TV._


	2. Ice Bucket Challenge Accepted

My eyes were heavy with sleep when I went to the bathroom. Skye had already gotten up to get coffee, so I was all alone. One of my biggest fears (Yes, I know you're surprised. Lucy, the fearless, amazing warrior, has a fear.) is silence. Sounds like I'm a wuss. But honestly, if I'm alone in a room, silence just tends to get to me. My solution? I either play music, or I sing.

Random fact of the day, I'm an amazing singer. And dancer. And playing piano. Okay, now it seems like I can do anything. But that's not true; I suck at drawing, being a normal person, remembering things, drawing, and aiming guns. I also tend to be a weirdo. And even if I lived in Crazytown, (which I kinda do) I'd still be the weirdest person there.

Okay, getting a little off topic. Anyway, it was really quiet in the room without Skye, so I turned some music from my iPod. I randomly selected Train's "Hey, Soul Sister", then got caught up in singing. My tired eyes bugged the heck out of me, so I clogged up the drain in the sink, filling it up with ice cold water, and dunking my head in. I screamed from the cold on my face, my towel barely muffling it.

"There you go, Skye," I said to myself, drying my hair. "Ice bucket challenge accepted."

I pulled on a white T-shirt, ripped jeans, and a black leather jacket.

The way I used to dress.

It felt more comfortable. Even though thinking about the way things were made me sad, I felt happy. There really isn't a way to describe it, but happy. It really helped me slide into my old self.

I quickly brushed my now-dry hair, tying it into a side fishtail braid. I didn't bother with makeup. (That shouldn't be too surprising. I _never _do.)

I walked into kitchen, humming the second verse to myself.

"Someone's in a good mood," Skye smiled from the counter. May stood beside her, Skye with coffee, and May without. (DUH)

"Yep, that's what happens when you dunk your head in ice water," I said, grabbing a straw from the cupboard.

"You could've just woke up with some coffee," Skye said.

"Ew, do you even know me?" I asked. "Coffee…"

"Ugh," May and I gagged.

"I'm so confused," Skye laughed.

"How?"

"How could you and May be so alike yet so different at the same time?"

"That's offensive," We said simultaneously. We both looked at each other.

"Shut up," We said again.

"Lucy, we've got something," Skye said, opening the door to our bedroom. I was just innocently watching TV in bed with my phone in my hand. I immediately stood up straight, following Skye down the hall. Hunter and May were already there beside her, the same look on their faces as always when they were dramatically walk-debriefing.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Coulson says he's found an 0-8-4," May responded. "The problem is it could be impossible to find."

"What? Why?"

"Cause there's no land there. Just ocean," Skye replied as we reached Coulson's office.

Coulson was at his desk with a sharp pencil in his hand, staring down at white scratches etched in his desk. He looked up at us, quickly pushing his books over them.

"Okay, Coulson, tell me what I got out of bed for," I said.

"Someone's bossy," Coulson said, raising his eyebrows at me as he stood up, standing by the monitor.

"We've detected a strange energy coming from the Pacific Ocean," He said, pointing to a blinking light on a map on the monitor. The picture changed to an older looking map, with the same blinking light in the same place. "These readings are similar to one we found several years ago, but we were never able to find the source of reading underwater. We put the mission to rest for a while and eventually just forgot about it, but now that we've got a couple of great hackers on our team, we might have a chance of finding it. I want everyone to be ready to board the Bus so when we do, we'll be able to get there fast. Got it?"

"Yes sir," We all mumbled in response.

Skye and I went to our room to start hacking.


	3. Sister to Sister's Boyfriend Talk

We started with researching the area of the signal, and found nothing.

"Lucy, there's a news helicopter flying near the energy signal," Skye said, watching her laptop expectantly just as watched mine. "News helicopter means cameras; if we can hack them, we'll be able to see what's going on."

"Okay, get hacking," I said. "Then mirror it over to me."

"What?! But I suck at the camera part," Skye whined. "Why can't you do it?"

"Well I still need the helicopter readings so come on, mirror it over," I said.

The map appeared on my screen, and I tapped away at the keyboard.

"Is it really gonna take this long?" Skye whined again.

"Yes," I mumbled. "Cause I'm…. Done."

"Record it," Skye commanded. I did.

We saw down into the ocean. Inside the helicopter, there stood a woman holding a microphone.

"This must be a camera test," Skye mumbled. "She should have been starting to 'news cast' by now."

"Alright," The lady said. "How do I look?"

"Sally!" The cameraman called. (From behind the camera. A DUH) "Shannon needs a quick cleanup!"

"Oh, yeah, Sean, that's real nice," The lady glared at the camera as a woman began cleaning up her face with concealer, blush and bronzer.

"What a phony," I muttered.

Shannon straightened her blazer and Sally handed her a scarf.

"Okay, I'm ready."

The camera turned towards the sky.

"Oh my goodness!" He yelled.

Through thin clouds, I saw a wall. A hovering covered in moss with a figure eight carved into it. Filling the spaces in the eight were small green colored gems. Small. And they were _hovering. Hovering. _

The helicopter flew higher. More and more structure materialised from the clouds, revealing a giant temple made with gold, stone, moss and emeralds. The temple stretched too far for me to see the end, but waterfalls and rivers were barely visible around it.

"That's amazing," Skye whispered.

"Skye," I said, frowning. "Something's wrong with this place."

"Oh my gosh," Shannon said. "Sean, are you getting this?"

"No duh!" Sean said.

"We need to get this on the news."

"We should investigate," The pilot twisted around from his seat. "If this building is floating, we need to see if we should leave this to the government."

"Wait," Sean said quietly. "Do you hear that?"

It was a growl. A monster screamed in the distance. Then thick pounding footsteps.

I shadowy Hulk-shaped figure lunged through the air, crashing into the helicopter. The screen was dark.

"What was that?"

"We don't know," Skye replied. "We were lucky they didn't broadcast it or HYDRA would have found out immediately."

"We did a little research," I said. "And it turns out that right there in that area was a HYDRA base. It's possible that HYDRA found this temple underwater and turned it into a lab. Maybe one of their experiments caused the temple to lift."

"We've talked with Coulson, and the plan is to drop a small amount of the team on this temple to investigate," Skye said. "We haven't talked about how long they'll stay there, but until further notice, it's as long as it takes to get the information we need. The Bus will be there on the daily, but won't be there the whole time. Once we have the information we need, we'll hop on the Bus to make a plan, then get dropped off one last time."

"How many people need to be on that team?" Hunter asked.

"About five people," I replied. "I've already volunteered."

I saw Hunter slowly sink underneath the table. _Someone's not interested, _I thought. _He will be in five, four, three, two… _

"I've volunteered as well," Skye said.

"Well, I think I'd be up for it," Hunter said almost immediately, rising from the table. I rolled my eyes.

"I'll go," Trip spoke up.

"Count me in," May said.

"That's five," I smiled.

"Can I go?"

All heads turned to Fitz.

"Fitz, we're going to need you on the Bus with Mack and Simmons," I said gently. "We don't want to risk you getting hurt, but we _are _going to need your help. If the temple was a HYDRA lab, there could be weapons and technology inside, and that's where you come in." I looked to Simmons. "We're going to need you to be ready for anything. There could be people inside that need your help."

"We've decided to leave tomorrow so we'll have time to do a little more research and preparation," Skye said. "If anyone has questions, talk to us."

I stopped outside the door to talk to Skye.

"Nice job with Fitz."

"No, not nice job!" I whined. "Just because Fitz struggles doesn't mean he's stupid; he obviously knew that I was too gentle."

"But you've changed," Skye murmured. "Maybe Fitz saw that instead." Her eyes stared right past me. I snapped my fingers.

"Earth to Skye!" I said before turning to see what she was looking at.

Hunter and Bobbi were standing there, talking. (More or less fighting)

"Okay, now I'm irritated," I muttered under my breath.

"He's cute," Skye mumbled.

"What?!" I almost yelled, whipping around.

"What?! Nothing!" Skye said quickly, shaking her head out of her daze.

I pushed her back a couple steps.

"You like him, don't you?" I whispered.

"What? Hunter, no!" She whispered back. Her eyes shifted past me again. "OH, oh, oh, shut up!" She said, her hand pushing on my face out of her way.

"Hello ladies, having a bit of a girl fight, are we?" Hunter said.

"I don't know Skye, are we?" I growled. I pushed my bangs over on top of my head, then looked to Hunter.

"Alright, Hunter, I'm gonna need to do some debriefing with you in a bit," I said. "Meet me in my room when you're ready."

I was sitting in my room for a couple hours, listening to Hunter hitting on Skye before he finally came to talk to me.

"Took you long enough," I mumbled, tapping away at my computer.

"Yeah yeah, what did you want to talk to me about?" He asked.

I closed my laptop.

"I know you have a thing for my sister," I fake-smiled.

"So we're gonna have a father daughter boy-friend kinda talk?"

"Pretty much," I said, standing up and grabbing a duffel bag. "So here's the deal… You have a thing for my sister, and my sister clearly has a thing for you, apparently this is gonna go down whether I like it or not. I just wanted to say, I'm not gonna get in your way. But that does not mean I'm gonna help you in any way. Also, if you break Skye's heart, I will break you."

"Lucy, why don't you trust me?" Hunter sighed.

"Hunter," I continued, throwing my water bottle and boxing gloves into the bag. "Before HYDRA, my team was my family. My family is still in place, but one puzzle piece is missing, another was stepped on, but still fits. Trip is not enough to fill that space. Neither are you." I pulled my bag over my shoulder. "Skye is always gonna be a part of that puzzle. You're just not there yet. Now, get out of my room!" I said, grabbing a pillow and whacking him hard till he left. I continued down the hall to the gym.


	4. Sisters TV Bonding

Later that night, I took a quick shower, dried my hair, then put on my pajamas. (Blue fleece bottoms with bunnies on them and a white tank top)

When I checked the clock, it was almost ten thirty. I decided to quickly go grab Skye and a bowl of popcorn for a marathon of one of our (her) favorite drama TV shows. She and Hunter were talking in the kitchen again, which made one less stop to make. I grabbed my water glass from the nightstand and started walking.

I rounded the corner, already hearing them talking quietly. I stopped in the doorway, watching them talk.

"No, Bobbi and I can't be…" Hunter started. "A thing anymore. Too much drama already."

"Ah," Skye said. I heard a hint of relief in her voice.

They stared. And stared.

_BAM. _

It happened. _IT. _

IT. You should know what _IT _is.

Hunter's face twisted into Ward's. My heart hammered, sweat collecting in my palms, and the waterglass slipped from my hands, shattering into a million pieces, and Skye and Ward jerked back suddenly. Skye stood up, Ward with her.

"Lucy," Skye said.

My knees shook, but I was strong enough to turn and bolt the other way. I heard Skye and Ward running after me. In my mind, they were after me. They were gonna hurt me.

I locked the door behind me, hiding in my bedroom. I stood beside the door, listening to Hunter and Skye arguing.

"I thought she gave you the talk!"

"She did!"

"Then why did my sister just lock me out of my own bedroom?!"

"I'm sorry, alright?!"

"Just go, okay; I need to talk to my sister."

I heard his footsteps leave the hallway.

"Lucy," Skye said. "He's gone. You can open up."

Tears streamed down my face.

"I can't." I shrunk down with my back against the door. I felt Skye do the same thing.

"What happened?"

I wiped tears off my face, collecting soft fabric in my clenched fist.

"I saw Ward," I sobbed. "He got you, he was gonna get me. I have nightmares about him once every week, and it's terrifying for me."

"Lucy, can you please open up?"

I breathed deeply, releasing my pajamas from my hand.

I stood up, then opened it up. Like me, Skye was standing, waiting. She looked at me pitifully.

That's the problem. She wouldn't pity me before. She would comfort me and understand, she might even feel the same way. She just feels bad for me now.

"Come here," She said, embracing me. I still enjoyed her company. I just wish it was the way it used to be.

"Lucy," She said, pulling back while gripping my hands tightly. "Things around here are going to change. With discovering we have a dad and everything, I'm scared everything is going to fall apart. So I want to make a promise, and you promise me the exact same thing, alright?" I nodded. "Okay, in case things do fall apart, I want us to stick together. We can be able to come to each other for anything, and always be honest. Sisters before anyone else."

"So if Simmons has a heart attack or something, I walk up to you and say, 'Hey, you okay?'" I smirked.

"Just promise we'll always stick together, no matter what?"

"Of course," I smiled, hugging her. Tears, small, still slipped down my face, but neither of us noticed. "So, do you wanna watch our show?"

"Sure." She smiled.

I couldn't keep track of how long we were sitting there, but I was thankful for the time she was there.


End file.
